Welcome to part two in our series of articles about travelling with children. If you missed part one you can read it here.

In part one of this series, I said that I know some people can’t contemplate travelling very far with children, for a range of reasons, but I have always prefered to have a go or at least take the time to see what’s possible.

I think it can be easy to talk ourselves out of things sometimes when you have children in tow. If you wait for the perfect conditions or time to travel with children then you will be waiting forever.

Everytime we travel anywhere as a family each child has what I call a ‘busy bag’.

A busy bag is made up of a range of things such as:

• Their favourite books
• A few of their favourite toys
• Their favourite snacks
• Drawing and colouring things
• Electronic devices like tablets and headphones
• Some new snacks they haven’t tried
• Something new wrapped up

I don’t normally let them see the bag before we leave as that would be the equivalent of showing your hand to the table in a game of cards, but I do have the “have you got my…?” conversation with the older children.

We have been on one very long trip where the busy bags were not even opened because of the entertainment provided by the travel operator, but I don’t like to risk it.

Don’t underestimate the power of a new game, snack or book for avoiding a meltdown when you find yourself in the middle of a foreign city with a sat nav that thinks you are in the North Pole or in an airport lounge when you discover your flight is delayed.

My traveling motto: be prepared!